The Mountains of High Africa allowed Africans to be Africans long before the struggle for independence. The dynastic kingdoms of the Highlands of Ethiopia prevailed for centuries and it was the only part of Africa that was not really colonized. Not even the scorching sands of the Sahara and its general inhospitality could keep the colonizers out, as did the mountains. More recently, when the sea of the evil of apartheid covered South Africa, both the Highland Kingdoms of Swaziland and Lesotho were symbolic bastions of African-ness. African cultures have left nature and prehistory as monuments of the heritage of human beings.
